


The Breakfast Club

by tisfan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Brooklyn, Dating, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, F/M, Limousine Sex, M/M, Multi, Natasha has a very busy social calendar, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Has No Game, Steve Rogers-centric, Threesome - F/M/M, Vaginal Sex, Voyeurism, pineapple doesn't go on pizza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-09 11:12:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11103381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: It was their morning thing, the Court.The four of them; Steve and his girlfriend, Natasha, her half-brother, Bucky and his girlfriend, Peggy. Clustered at their usual table in the fountain courtyard, drinking coffee from the bistro and eating day-old stale biscuits from Peggy’s shop. The way it had been for the last two years and the way Steve wanted it to be for the rest of his life.Which was, of course, when it all went to shit.Because Steve took one look at the new shop owner, who was directing the movers to put furniture and boxes into the empty storefront, and fell desperately in love.Fuck.





	1. On Your Left

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to: eyesofshinigami for ideas and assistance, quarra for providing motivation, antigrav_vector for swapping stories for a scene, needmorefiction, ellebeesknees, whispersofdelirium, cryo-bucky, whatthefoucault, chiyume, rohkeutta, chicklette, obsessivereader, and massivespacewren for encouragement, cheers and general entertainment, angelycdevil and softsam for beta reading and suggestions, and 27dragons for just existing and preventing me from deleting the whole thing in a fit of rage
> 
> I probably forgot someone. Sorry! Everyone in the RBB_slack has been wonderful and perfect. I've gotten to know and work with some really great writers and artists and made friends that I hope will continue long after this story has been forgotten.
> 
> Also, thanks to Mithborien for art that will be appearing as Chapter Five

Whoever built the Court was stupid and probably southern. The four-storey, Creole-style townhouse was gorgeous, brilliant yellow on the outside, square and bulky and solid. When customers entered through the main gates, they passed thick walls and ended up in the fountain square, open to the sky and lush and full of vegetation. Stairs flanked both sides of the fountain, to the walk-around balcony, supported on the cast-iron pillars. Flowering vines crawled up those pillars.

The building was nothing like what should be in New York City and Steve loved it because Steve was stupid. That’s what Bucky would say; hell, that was what he _did_ say. It had been a failed bed and breakfast, and then a failed disco club, and then a failed restaurant. And now the Court was a series of tiny specialty shops and Steve and his friends rented most of the first and second floors for their shops.

Steve’s pub -- and it was a _pub_ , not a fuckin’ bar, there are enough bars and clubs in the city and that wasn’t what Steve wanted -- took up most of the first floor. When he and Bucky had been in London for a year or so, all three of them crammed into Peggy’s tiny flat, they’d gone to pubs. And there weren’t any such thing in the States; coffee shops were the closest they came, but even there, it wasn’t the same. Coffee shops were places for hipsters to sit around and pretend to work on their screenplays. Pubs were places for _friends_ , and that’s what Stars and Bars was. A pub. Steve had his regulars and they had each other.

The other shops on the first floor were a bead shop, an ebay lister that Steve suspected was a front for a smuggling operation that Steve didn’t want to know anything about, an empty front, and a small coffee bistro that belonged to a new owner every few months. The coffee shop was a constant, who owned it and what it was called changed regularly.

Second floor, directly above Stars and Bars, was Bucky’s antique bookshop. After a really ugly lawsuit (that he’d lost and was still bitter as fuck about it, and no one ever _ever_ mentioned Barnes & Noble around him if they didn’t want to end up on the cutting side of his tongue), he’d named the place Antique Books & Collectables. Next to ABCs was Peggy’s place, Tea and Biscuits, a tiny cafe that mostly fed the bookshop customers.

The three of them ran their businesses, catered to the various anglophiles in the city, as well as getting a steady trickle of tourists in, and in the morning, they sat in the fountain square and had breakfast together.

Steve worked at the pub until late. Doors closed at three, but he was cleaning, stocking, and doing the books until at least five. He usually grabbed a coffee and read a book until the others came in around eight, before heading back to his and Natasha’s flat to sleep. He’d get up when she was home from her consulting job, and his morning social time was her after-work social time. It mostly worked.

It was their morning thing, the Court.

The four of them; Steve and his girlfriend, Natasha, her half-brother, Bucky (who was Steve’s best friend) and his girlfriend, Peggy. Clustered at their usual table in the fountain courtyard, drinking coffee from the bistro and eating day-old stale biscuits from Peggy’s shop. The way it had been for the last two years and the way Steve wanted it to be for the rest of his life.

Which was, of course, when it all went to shit.

Because Steve took one look at the new shop owner, who was directing the movers to put furniture and boxes into the empty storefront, and fell desperately in love.

_Fuck._

***

“On your left,” someone said, from a lot closer than Sam had expected. He jerked to the right, arms coming up to cradle the box. He turned and caught a glimpse of a broad back, spiky blonde hair and bare arms in a tank top. Sam blinked. Talk about armed and _dangerous_. Shit those were some guns on that guy. He didn’t catch a face before the guy was out the gates and gone, but wow. Buns of steel, too.

“Nice views around here,” Sam said.

There wasn’t a lot for the movers to do; a couple of desks, some file cabinets, paperwork, chairs, some posters. He paid off the movers and was staring around his new office within an hour and a half. Huh. That was something, wasn’t it? Years of savings, aching to get back in the game. Somehow it seemed like it should be a more momentous occasion. But there was no one to celebrate with.

Sam moved around the room, opening boxes and moving them to more appropriate locations around the office. He hung up the picture, him and Riley, and had just stepped back to look at it, that familiar ache squeezing his heart. “Wish you were here, man,” he said.

Someone rapped on the door to his office and Sam nearly jerked out of his skin. What the hell--

At the door were two women, one red-headed, the other sleek brunette, with a man behind them who was huge and brooding. Either a welcoming committee or the local mob boss looking for protection money.

“Not quite open yet,” Sam said, as he opened the door.

“Quite all right, old chap,” the one woman said, her voice very pommy, upper class British, the sort of accent you usually only heard in costume dramas. “We’re your neighbors and wanted to say hello.”

She handed him a basket, wrapped in pink cellophane and tied with a bow. “I’m Peggy Carter, the tea shop is mine, and I must say, my brew is far superior to our little coffee shop’s dregs, but if you meet Angie, don’t tell her I said so. She’s sweet. I brought you some tins and biscuits to get you settled in.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Sam said. He juggled the basket a moment, then sat it on his desk. He glanced at the picture of Riley again; Riley was the social one of them, the one who could make small talk with the best of ‘em. God, Sam missed him. “Sam Wilson; Falcon Flights. I’m a --”

“Tandem paragliding instructor,” the redheaded woman said, smiling. Sam blinked, then looked closer and blinked again. She’d flicked one of his business cards off his desk and was studying it as if the secrets of the universe were contained on the simple glossy cover. “Sounds fun. Natasha Romanov. I don’t actually work here, I just keep these two in line.” She jerked her head, indicating the others and offered her hand. “I’m a consultant.”

She was lovely, and Sam let himself linger over the handshake. Her pale skin was smooth, soft, warm, and smelled like peaches. Her hair was a brilliant amber-red, the sort that probably came out of a bottle, but it suited her, and she had a sweet smile.

The man with them glowered, and Sam let go of Natasha’s hand, wondering if the tall guy was her boyfriend, but that was disputed a moment later. “Don’t listen to my sister, she could sell ice in Siberia. James Barnes, antiquities and book dealer.” James offered a hand as well, and his grip was softer than Sam would have expected, given that you could find a picture of the guy in the dictionary under _scary motherfucker._

Natasha’s phone beeped and she dug it out of her jacket pocket to glance at it. “It was nice meeting you, Sam,” she said, her smile warm, welcoming, flirtatious. “I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

“Give Tony a kiss for me,” Peggy said, as they left Sam’s office, the door swinging shut behind them. Slow. He’d need to oil that, apparently.

“Kiss him yourself if you want him kissed,” Natasha said.

***

Nat spread her calendar out on the dining room table. She had her cell already out and had sent out a handful of texts and was waiting for answers.

Tuesday nights, those were always Steve nights, unless something really urgent came up. In the three years she’d been living with Steve, she’d only had to nix out Tuesdays with him twice. Oh, no, wait, three times, because there was that time when she’d ended up out of town with Clint and their plane had been delayed and she hadn’t gotten home until Wednesday morning.

She picked up her blue highlighter and drew a light-blue box inside every single Tuesday of the month. There were four, this month; which meant she was responsible for thinking of two different dates. The other dates were Steve’s to plan. She liked his plans, most of the time. He was a closet coupon clipper and always pulling out discount activities from Living Large for Less or other websites like that. Which meant they were always going to new restaurants or doing fun, crazy activities.

Her phone beeped.

_Next text from You Know Who I Am:_ Need you for fundraiser date on Sun  
You free

_Text from Nat_ : Never free… but available

She circled Sunday in red.

_New Text from Bruce_ : behind in reserhc again  
Bring me coffee and takeout i <3 you forever

_New Text from Clint_ : go away  
i hate everything

Natasha sighed, circled mornings for most of the week in purple. Clint always needed cheering up, or at least fed, when he was in that mood. She could get him doughnuts and drop by in the morning, before grabbing lunch with Bruce. Her afternoons alternated between work -- she was a security consultant for Stark Industries -- and Steve before the pub opened.

_New Text from Sharon:_ Brunch on sunday I’m open.

_Text from Nat:_ terrible hipster place on 48th? Or bro-rista brunch at Daily Grind

_New Text from Sharon:_ Bro-ristas!

That got a grin; the hipster baristas at Daily Grind always liked to sneer at people and generally act like assholes, which made Sharon turn her lesbian dial up to eleven, just to watch them drool.

Natasha tapped at her chin with her pen. She had an empty spot there on Monday afternoon. Maybe she’d stop by the Court and flirt with the new guy. He’d seemed cute. Gorgeous skin, cute gap-toothed smile. Little bit sad. Might be a fun project. She and Stark were closing it off, anyway. He’d been dating Pepper Potts for a while now and it was looking like it might turn into something serious. Tony’d always been arm candy -- and damn fine arm candy at that -- and they were good friends, but it’d never be anything more than that. Tony needed to be loved. Depended on. Needed.

Natasha couldn’t give that to him, but she’d be plenty happy for him to get it. Which would leave a big hole in her social calendar.

She pulled out the pink highlighter and circled Monday afternoon. _Sam?_ She wrote in the middle of the circle.

***

 

The worst thing about it was that Steve didn’t know how to flirt. He’d never figured it out. Back when he was younger, Bucky used to drag him along on double dates. Which hadn’t worked at all until Steve had met Bucky’s half-sister (that they hadn’t even known about until she showed up at Big Jim’s funeral) and hit it off.

And Nat was great -- Steve _loved_ Natasha. But she was polyamorous (a word that pissed her half-brother off to no end, linguistics snob that Bucky was). Which was fine, Steve didn’t have a problem with that part of it. Sometimes it got a bit lonely, though, because while Nat had a very full social calendar (she had a friends with benefits relationship with her boss Tony Stark and a platonic soulmate thing going on with Bruce, and a ladycuddles on the side with Peggy’s cousin, Sharon, along with her best friend, Clint, who she sometimes slept with, but not usually.) The poly part of the relationship was only theoretical on Steve’s side.

Most of the time, the problem was, like the poly part of the relationship, theoretical. Steve didn’t consider himself a people-person. He had his pub friends, but when he wasn’t working, he generally wanted to be left alone. He read books and he painted sometimes. Not much of a television watcher, either, so he hadn’t picked up with habit of chatting with people about their favorite shows.

He’d been Nat’s primary for almost eighteen months now (and they’d been flatmates and occasional lovers before that) and he hadn’t actually bothered to look around. He was happy with Nat’s company, he was absolutely drunk on Nat’s body. It seemed enough for him.

Right up until he’d gotten a look at Sam Wilson, which just made things awkward. All of which left him sitting at the table in the court, just watching Sam with an intensity that was probably getting him labeled as a creepy-stalker sort of guy.

He knew it was pathetic when _Bucky_ noticed.

“Oh my god, Rogers,” Bucky said, throwing himself down in the seat next to Steve, “just ask him to go for coffee with you.”

“Is that coffee, or _coffee_?” Peggy inquired, her lipstick brilliant red and leaving marks on her paper tea-cup.

“Like it matters,” Bucky scoffed, kicking at Steve’s chair leg, rattling his bones. “Just ask ‘im, before he calls th’ cops on ya.”

“I’m not going to ask him out,” Steve protested. “I don’t even know him.”

“Oh, my god, Rogers. Pathetic.” Bucky stood up and grabbed Steve’s wrist. “Come on. Come on, come on, come on.”

Steve blamed the fact that he was dead tired on the fact that he actually let Bucky drag him all the way into Falcon Flights before he planted his feet.

“Sam, hi,” Bucky said. “Remember me, from the other day. This is my friend, Steve. Steve, this is Sam. Now you know each other, bye, I gotta go open my shop.”

It was a testament to a lifelong friendship that Steve didn’t murder Bucky on the spot. (And the fact that Bucky was damn quick and out of range before chasing after him would be obvious that Steve was committing mayhem.) Steve’s ears burned furiously, the back of his neck heated.

“Hi, Sam,” Steve managed, not looking up. “Don’t mind that jerk, he’s just --”

A brown finger touched Steve’s jaw and tipped his face up. “Oh, look, there you are,” Sam said, adorable gap-toothed smile already in place. “Wondered what you looked like. You been sittin’ at the wrong way to the sun, first thing in the morning. It’s nice to finally meet you. Everyone around here has good things to say about the local pub owner.”

Aaaand Steve was lost. Fuck. He never knew what to say to people, he really did not. Bucky was the charming one, the one with the glorious smile and the cheerful bad-boy attitude that had men and women alike clamouring for his attention. Steve was just... Steve. He didn’t often open his mouth to strangers without sticking his foot in it, all the way up to the fucking hip.

“Yeah, that happens, people say… stuff,” Steve stammered. “I was thinking, if you wanted… I mean, not here, because everyone would. Talk. And maybe? Coffee?”

“Well, that was terrible. You need to step up your flirt game, dude. You should be ashamed of yourself,” Sam said, grinning, and it was damn hard to take offense because that smile was just taking huge bites of Steve’s heart -- okay, that was corny, even in his own head. “Try asking me out in a complete sentence? If that’s what you were doing, because that’s what it sounded like you were doing. I’ll help.”

Steve flushed, brilliant, hot, red. “How do you plan to do that?”

“Repeat after me,” Sam said, shaking his head. “Sam.”

Steve stared at him.

“Come on, it’s not that hard. Really, it’s a short name.”

“Sam,” Steve repeated.

“Would you like to go grab a cup of coffee with me?”

Steve heaved a deep breath, wishing the damn butterflies would just fucking stop. “Would you… like to have a coffee with me?” On the plus side, if Sam said no, _now_ , after all that… well, then he was an asshole and having a good laugh at Steve’s expense, and that would be ugly, but at least then Steve would _know_.

“That the first time you’ve ever asked someone on a date?”

“First time I’ve asked a man on a date, yeah,” Steve said, breathing a little harder than he should be, given that it was a simple damn question.

“I kinda put that together,” Sam said. “Musta freaked you out a little? The whole takin’ a chance thing?”

Steve was smiling, he couldn’t help it. Sam was so fucking adorable, and at this point, Steve wasn’t sure anyone would be that cruel. If Sam wasn’t interested, there was no point to dragging the encounter out. “It takes some getting used to,” Steve said. “So, how ‘bout it? Coffee?”

“I would love to,” Sam said. “Not today, though. I have too much to do, and I’ve already had my coffee.”

“That’s how it is?”

“That’s how it is.”

“Tomorrow, then? Earlier?”

Sam nodded. “Sounds like a date, man.”


	2. No Drama, Just Tacos

 For someone who’d asked him out, Steve rather seemed to expect Sam to carry the majority of the conversation; either that or he’d been given that terrible advice about asking leading questions and making someone talk about _themselves_. For the majority of low-key narcissists that most people in the city were, not listening, but waiting for their turn to talk, it no doubt worked as a tool to get into someone’s britches.

As it was, prying details out of Steve Rogers’s mouth was like doin’ SWAT team levels of teeth-pulling.

And probably wouldn’t have been worth the effort, no matter how gorgeous the guy was -- it was New fucking York, Sam could pick up good lookin’ dudes all damn day and not run out -- except that then Steve laughed.

Sam wasn’t even sure what he’d said to get that reaction; he’d just been filling silence. Sam never quite got the impression that Steve wasn’t listening, in fact he was pretty sure Steve _was_ paying attention. But he’d managed to get Sam talking about work, and Sam could rattle on about paragliding and stupid flyboys all day without it getting old. So, he wasn’t quite expecting it.

But Steve had laughed, and he’d flicked those glorious blue eyes (with a little green, around the edges) down to the ground and then gazed up at Sam from under thick dark blond eyelashes, and Sam’s polite intentions of sayin’ “this was nice, but I ain’t ready for anything” went right out the window.

He hadn’t been, honestly. He’d lost Riley less than a year earlier; a bad storm had snuck up on them on a longer flight and there hadn’t been anything Sam could do. It was like he’d been up there just to watch his dumb ass go down. Sam hadn’t been in a place to start again, hadn’t felt like his heart was healed enough to take a risk.

They’d gotten around to talking about music after that, and Steve mentioned that he liked to go to concerts, which had got them discussing shows they’d been to -- both good and terrible.

“Would you,” Steve said, just before they got back to the Court, “like to go to a show? With me, I mean, because… yeah, I --”

“Still haven’t gotten on top of your flirt game, dude,” Sam teased. He couldn’t help but tease; the man was built like a brick wall, gorgeous and obviously intelligent. How could he have gotten to be a fully grown ass adult and still flirt like a middle-school kid? “What’s your intent?”

“Uh… to go listen to music?”

“I mean, toward me,” Sam said. “If this is just drinks an’ a little bit of quick sex, I gotta say, you should really get a Grindr account and swipe left, because I’m not up for that right now.” He didn’t want to talk about Riley, he really did not.

Steve shrugged, put his hands on his hips. “My intentions are to take you out to a concert. Listen to music, have a drink or two, and see. You’re not wrong, I don’t date a lot of people. Sex is not off the table, but it’s not what I’m offering right now. Just want to see if you’re someone I might like to consider that with.”

“An’ you don’t get stupid, if I date someone else?” Because Sam had had enough of that shit, back in school.

“That’s not my concern until you decide that it is,” Steve said, easily enough. “Exclusive access is also not what I’m offering.”

“Then give me a call when you decide what music you want to listen to,” Sam said, handing Steve one of his business cards. Falcon Flights wasn’t popular enough for him to bother to keep a work and play phone separate, not yet.

“I’ll do that.”

Sam went into his office and started digging through the internet sign-ups and inquiries. He scheduled a few jumps and talked to his winch-operator. None of that distracted him from his thoughts. All in all, it had been a very good first date. A good, small, cautious step back into the world of dating. He could do this. _You got this, man._

Confidence.

Not like his ego couldn’t use a little boost, and Steve was a _fine_ lookin’ man. It was a good start.

But he was starting to get a little suspicious of the bookshop owner when Barnes’s sister, Natasha, showed up at lunch the next day with two orders of street-truck tacos and wanted to know if he’d like to have lunch with her.

“I don’t wanna start any drama,” Sam answered, although the tacos smelled good, and he discovered that Natasha had worn a particularly low-scoop blouse, which drew the eye.

“There’s no drama,” she said, looking in the bag, “just tacos. Come on, it’ll be fun. I have a great bench all staked out.”

There was going to be drama. Sam could smell it. Under the aroma of tacos. But what the hell, Steve had said exclusive access was off the table. And Nat was really, really pretty.

***

Natasha took Sam only as far as her favorite corner of the fountain square. Shielded from view from almost everywhere except the galleries directly above, it was quiet, and sheltered in a way that few places were, in the area, thanks to the plants and sculptures placed thickly around it. The gardener had apparently decided years ago that this corner would be a lush tangle of plant life and art, so had let everything get overgrown and somehow secluded, even if the rest of the courtyard was airy and open.

Sam raised an eyebrow at her. "This is your great bench?"

"The local parks are farther away and a lot dirtier than our own benches, in this part of Brooklyn. This is nearby, outside, and reasonably private, as long as you don't raise your voice." Natasha dug in her take-out bag and handed him a taco. "I wasn't planning on having a heart-to-heart. Just lunch."

"Right." Sam took the taco, though he still looked a bit skeptical. "No drama." He unwrapped it carefully and then licked sour cream from his fingers; truck tacos were messy.

"No drama."

They ate in silence for a few minutes. Natasha found she liked that; most people would try to fill the silence, but it appeared Sam was one of those rare birds that knew how to just be.

"So what do you want to talk about in this not-a-heart-to-heart that won't cause drama?" Suspicion, but light. He wasn’t angry, that was good. Curious, little bit. Curious was good; she could always draw in the person who wanted to know _more_.

"Well," she replied slowly, choosing her words carefully, "the point of having a conversation is usually to learn about the other person."

Sam huffed at her. "You going to ask me a question, then?"

"I was going to let you start."

"Let's start with the obvious question, then. Are you and Steve an item? Seen you together in the mornings, even though he asked me out. What the hell am I getting into here?" Challenging, but not aggressive. His body was relaxed, only the shoulders held just so let her know that this… meant something to him. So, he was interested. Probably in Steve and was wondering what the hell she was doing sniffing around. And honest; if he was looking for a cheat on the side, he wouldn’t have brought up Steve at all. "Assuming I do decide I want this to go any further."

"Ah." Natasha looked down at her hands for a moment. "Well, that's a simple question with a complicated answer."

"So? Try me."

"Steve is the simple part of my relationship. I'm polyamorous and have several more significant others, right now." Natasha looked up, catching Sam's eyes and holding his gaze as she went on. "Some of those relationships are sexual, some are not. But Steve has been my primary for quite some time. He's free to pursue other relationships, if he wants. He simply hasn't found anyone else he wanted to pursue until now."

Sam thought that over for a long moment. "Setting aside your own complicated spider's web of relationships, I'm not sure I'm ready to jump into anything serious," he answered, "and something tells me that Steve is a very serious kind of guy."

"That's fair. Just try not to hurt him." Natasha let her voice hold a hint of steel. "I don't want to have to end Steve's drama. He tends to throw all of himself into the things he does."

"And what about you?"

"You're going to have to elaborate a little on that."

"If I do take Steve up on his offer, then what will you do?" He held his hands up mock defensively. She could almost hear what he was thinking, something along the lines of _she’s going to say break your neck._ People always made that assumption about her; first that she was possessive about her lovers, and that she was dangerous. The first thing was not true… the second one was classified. She smiled, which did not give him terribly much ease. She hadn’t meant it to, so that was all right. Tension, when given the proper nudging, almost always became desire.

"That depends." Natasha gave him a long lingering look.

"On what?"

"You. And what you want."

Sam's expression went shuttered briefly and Natasha wondered what had caused that reaction. "I'm assuming that means you're open to the idea of having a little more than lunch," he said.

Holding her hand up to the light and pointedly checking her manicure, she kept her tone light. "Well, my other sexual relationship is probably coming to an end soon." Standing, she let the corner of her mouth quirk upwards. "Good talk. Let's do this again sometime. Your turn to provide lunch."

Without another word, Natasha left, feeling Sam's eyes linger on her back and legs.

She smirked, feeling the predatory edge it held and secure in the knowledge that he couldn't see her face. Sam was going to be fun. Possibly as much fun as Tony had been -- she was going to miss Tony, so much -- and definitely as easy on the eyes. Maybe easier. Sam’s smile had more sincerity going for it; Tony’s smile was sly, subversive, and so often part of his elaborate social mask. Getting Tony to open up to her had been a challenge, but ultimately, he hadn’t been what she wanted. Seeing what Sam was, underneath, well, that could be gold, right there.

***

 

“Just so you know,” Sam said, leaning against the counter in the bookshop, “when this turns into a dramafest and I have to find a new damn location for my office, I’m going to blame you.”

“That’s cool,” Barnes said. He was unpacking a box of books, brushing his fingers lightly over each cover and carefully sorting them into stacks. “What did I do this time?”

“Tryin’ to set me up with your best friend and your sister, dude? That’s just… meddlesome.”

Barnes held out his fist and made a bomb noise before spreading his fingers. “Nope,” he said. “I deny any and all responsibility for whatever crazy shit Tash gets up to. But Steve, man, yeah, I’ll cop that one. Boy was pining. It was sad and noticeable and embarrassing.”

“Over me?” Sam asked. He didn’t try very hard to keep the shock out of his voice. Big guy, good looking like Steve, he could have his pick of women. Or men. Even with Natasha’s bizarre lunch-date proposal, it was hard to imagine that they were doing anything else, besides messing with him.

Which, had Riley meant less to him, Sam might have taken them up on a little fuck-and-drama. But what he’d had with Riley had been good, and he didn’t want to get involved in something that would leave a bad taste in his mouth, after knowing what a real relationship could be like.

“Swear to Christ, ain’t nobody look in a damn mirror these days,” Barnes said. He huffed out a breath and leaned against the countertop. “I don’t even lean that way, an’ I can tell you’re a good-lookin’ man.”

“Thank you?”

Barnes made another scoffing noise. “Just callin’ it like I see. Take a blind person not to notice the high concentration of hot people in that courtyard in th’ morning. But, since blindness seems to be contagious; yes. Steve’s a fine man, freakin’ Dorito, if you ask me. Not to mention he’s all kinds of sweet n’ stupid, which people seem to like. Go out, have some drinks, talk to him. It’s worth your while.”

“And your sister?”

Barnes rolled his eyes. “Tash can handle herself, and her busy fuckin’ sociopath-social life. Th’ girl is crazy. The question with Tash tends to be this: are you good enough to handle her? She’s… she’s a handful. Get plenty of sleep; you’ll need it.”

“Man, that’s your _sister_.”

“Grow up,” Barnes said. “I want my sister to be happy, not be a nun.”

Sam scoffed at that one. “You’re… an interesting person, Barnes.”

“You don’t even know th’ half of it anymore,” Bucky said.

A few days turned into a week; Sam still hadn’t seen either Nat or Steve at the same time; Steve would join him for coffee in the early mornings, and then Sam had actual work to do. Nat brought lunch once more. And he could see them through the window during what Sam was coming to think of as the Breakfast Club meeting. Barnes and his English gal, Steve and Nat, with Sam stealing glances like a kid at the candy store.

He wasn’t quite sure what to think about it the whole thing.

Sam got Steve’s call about the concert when he was almost four hundred feet in the air and rising. He was two minutes away from unhooking from the truck. Sam answered the call -- he kept his phone in the breast pocket of his flight jacket just in case his driver needed him -- without thinking.

“Wilson, what?”

His driver often called right before an unhook, just in case there was weather coming in, or traffic that Sam should be aware of. Once to let him know an amatuer pilot had a change of flight plan without clearing it, and Sam might want to veer south to get away from the idiot.

“You like Irish punk music?” Steve’s voice, deep and soothing, rumbled in his ear.

“Hey Steve,” Sam said, “man, this ain’t ‘xactly the… shit, hang on.” Sam dropped the phone into his pocket without disconnecting and grabbed for the tether. He tugged a few times until he pulled himself down about twenty feet, gave himself some slack, then unhooked. He dropped the tether, watched it reel itself back into the truck’s spindle and whooped as the updraft grabbed him, yanking him into the clear, blue sky.

There was nothing better than this; just a thin piece of nylon sheeting between him and God, hanging defiant to gravity, wind all around him, earth below and sky above. He tugged at the hand controls and spun into the updraft, higher, leaving everything behind. Everything, everything was so far away, it no longer mattered. Riley would be grinning and cheering, and somehow, Sam could feel Riley’s hand on his back, like the wind, hear his voice like ripple of the wings.

And then, Sam really could hear someone’s voice. “Sam! Sam!”

Oh, right. Sam locked the right side control and fumbled for the phone. “Steve, man,” Sam said.

“Where are you?”

“Um, Jersey? About five hundred feet above Jersey, really, so I’m not sure it counts.”

Steve laughed, and Sam almost fumbled with the phone because that was a sound he had only heard once before, but damn, he’d like to hear it again. Steve laughed like it surprised him, like he’d been through too much for too long to find much of anything light hearted, and because he did, it shocked him more than anything.

“Lemme see,” Steve said. “Put me on facetime?”

“Yeah, hang on,” Sam said. He messed with his phone and then held it out, praying that he didn’t drop it, although the visuals would probably be cool, right up until his phone took a face plant right into the ground.

From the length of his arm, Sam couldn’t hear Steve anymore, but when he’d glance over, Steve was leaning close to his own phone, as if he could crawl through the glass and share the ride, watching everything with wide-eyed wonder.

“So, uh,” Steve started, as Sam pulled the phone back when he caught a good tailwind. “Concert, if you still wanted to do that?”

“Yeah, sure,” Sam responded.

“I’ll text you details,” Steve said, then, very seriously, “hey, Sam? Thanks for sharing this with me.”

Sam couldn’t help a wide grin. It wasn’t what he’d consider very exciting, like watching someone else play video games, but if Steve enjoyed it; well, maybe he’d be able to get the man into the air, at some point.

“My pleasure, man.”


	3. A Little Sex with Intentions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains explicit m/f sex. If that's not your thing, stop reading after the second section.

Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys probably weren’t the best first date material Steve could have chosen, but when he saw they were playing local, he just couldn’t resist. On the other hand, if Sam could handle him at his drunk, Irish-angry ass worst, he could probably deal with just about anything else Steve could dish out.

Steve had a space near the stage and two beers by the time Sam managed to weasel in, ducking and dodging.

“Lucky you so tall, man,” Sam said, finally reaching his side. “Wouldn’t have seen you, otherwise.”

Steve rolled his eyes and handed Sam a beer. “How hard it is, to find the front of the room?” He drained half his beer in a single gulp, enjoying the rich, thick brew. Most concerts served the cheap shit (well, it wasn’t cheap, beer in a cup, even a thin plastic cup, was hideously expensive at a concert venue) but no Irishman worth his salt was going to drink Budweiser. He’d gotten Guinness for himself and Bass Ale for Sam, who hadn’t seemed like a stout drinker, given how much goddamn sugar the man put in his coffee.

“Well, I got here,” Sam said. “I do what you do, just… slower.” He took a sip of his beer.

He certainly went through beer slower, Steve thought. Or maybe it was just that there was something compulsory in being at an Irish Punk concert that got Steve’s blood up. Or Steve was making excuses for himself, that happened sometimes, too.

Steve staked out a good spot by the stage, eyeing the other concert-goers as the room slowly filled. Even standing still, feet firm planted, more and more people slipped between them and the stage. It was inevitable as the tide. Steve’d been to a few of these concerts before and ended up clinging to the wall, or a chunk of ground, as the waves of rowdy, drunken music lovers swept the room in a storm.

The opening band was loud and already drunk. Steve noted three separate stage managers keeping the bandmates on track and playing. The bassist was off in her own world, doing nothing at all with the rest of the band, thumping on her giant double-bass (that was missing a string and when Steve could hear it at all, badly out of tune at that) with wild abandon.

But it was fun, and the lead singers were attractive; a thin blond man in a sleeveless shirt with biceps that had obviously been induced by anabolic steroids, and a woman with a tight kirtle style dress who was constantly waving her skirts around and showing off her underwear, probably by accident, but that was okay, too.

The concert venue grew more crowded, or at least the stuff near the stage filled up. As it happened, a large band of college-aged kids started a dance-circle and the inevitable pushing and shoving started.

Steve was well used to it, although the whites around Sam’s eyes spoke of either incredulity or concern. Steve couldn’t quite tell. But Steve was good at feeding people into the pit without getting wrapped up in it himself. He didn’t mind dancing, but dance-circles weren’t really dancing, it was running around in circles and smashing into other people. Fun while shit-faced drunk, but painful in the morning.

“You call this music?” Sam yelled, leaning in. Steve took the opportunity to tuck an arm around Sam’s shoulders to pull him closer.

“Theoretically, yes,” Steve said.

“Guess they technically singing,” Sam admitted, shaking his head. “Even if I can’t understand a word of it.”

The band got louder and conversation became more difficult. By the time the second band was up, Steve had taken to shaking his head every time Sam tried to talk; there was just nothing that could be done unless they wanted to move back. Which Sam didn’t seem to want; when Steve had taken his hand and raised eyebrows toward the back of the room, Sam shook his head.

The dance pit overflowed, shoving the crowd back and Steve had to dodge a few staggering drunks before the wave turned and with some not-so-gentle pushes, Steve cleared a small space around them again. Sam moved closer; even as cold as the room was (someone had the air conditioner cranked to full and they’d managed to stake out their spot just under the vent), Steve could feel the heat radiating out from the man. Steve put an arm around Sam’s waist, found the edge of his back pocket with his fingers.

Sam reached around, twined their fingers together behind his back. “Don’t wanna lose you in this mess, man,” Sam yelled in Steve’s ear.

“You keep telling yourself that,” Steve yelled back.

“I think you just want to get your hands on this grade-A prime ass,” Sam said.

Steve just raised his eyebrow and then smirked.

“It’s a nice ass, Steve,” Sam said, “You can admit it.”

Steve squeezed. Seemed like a good answer to him.

The main band finally came out, and the lead singer started throwing cans of Guinness to the audience. There was a mad surge toward the front of the venue, but Sam managed to catch one anyway, by dint of getting more airtime than Steve had seen on anyone aside from pro-basketball players.

Sam opened the beer with a crack and it spumed white froth in all directions, soaking Steve’s arm and wrist. Before Steve knew entirely what was happening, Sam grabbed Steve’s hand and licked the beer foam off the sensitive skin on the inside of Steve’s wrist.

“Jesus, Sam,” Steve whispered, probably not even audible over the roar and rush of crowd, the wailing violin, the smashing tambourine, but Steve was shook, all the way to his bones shaken.

Sam just winked, chugged half the can. Maybe Steve was wrong about Sam not liking bitter stout. Steve watched the way Sam’s throat worked, easy and sweet, as he swallowed. _Jesus_ , that was hot. Sam offered him the rest of the can and somehow, putting his mouth where Sam’s had rested seemed even more intimate than a kiss, more erotic than the quick flick of Sam’s tongue against Steve’s skin.

Steve drank, finishing off the can in a few swallows. He crushed the can between his hands and searched for a bin. Getting to the can was going to be easy, getting back to Sam after was going to be much harder. They could both go, and sacrifice their place, or--

The dance circle moved again, pushing at the ring of audience and bouncers that tried to keep the violence to a minimum. Sam was shoved, hard, in the small of the back and staggered. Steve lost the beer can in the effort to catch him before he was knocked onto the filthy, beer-stained floor. Sam landed in his arms as neat as if they’d planned it, face pressed against Steve’s chest. He’d just looked up, a wry gap-toothed grin on his face, meeting Steve’s gaze, which did powerful things inside Steve’s rib cage.

Steve wet his lips, ransacked his brain for a clever quip that would make him sound both cool and seductive. Surely those words had to exist somewhere in the language, right? People went on successful dates all the time, ended up in beautiful relationships, and so somewhere, the perfect words were there.

The crowd shifted again. A woman and her date zigged when they should have zagged. She yelled in pain as someone stomped down on her foot. She stumbled backward; her date went to grab her hand, but he was none-too-steady himself. They went down. And fell into Sam. Who ploughed Steve down.

For a horrible second, Steve knew he was going to fall before he did.

He mostly crushed someone else under him, which cushioned the blow, but he ended up on his back on the sticky floor, and if Sam hadn’t gotten an elbow into his gut, having Sam’s weight on him might have been just compensation. As it was, their eyes met again and Sam’s gaze was both rueful and breathlessly heated at the same time.

Steve inhaled, sharp, and interested, before he worked to get off the drunken reveler he’d smashed into the floor, feeling every inch of Sam’s skin against his as they worked at getting up, the crowd backing off enough that they were _able_ to get up. Thank Christ for that much.

Steve didn’t remember the rest of the concert, so wrapped up in the tingle of his skin where Sam’s hands and body had landed against him. _Oh, god, I am in so much trouble._

It wasn’t until they were walking back to the subway that Steve realized there’d been another casualty to the concert, not just his peace of mind.

“You got a hole in your pants, man,” Sam said.

“Huh?” Steve answered. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been paying attention; his attention was completely held hostage by the way Sam’s mouth moved as he talked and the delightful animation of his face, but that it came out of nowhere. One moment they were talking about the concert and Sam’s opinion of the music and then--

“Hole,” Sam said. And he ducked down, grabbed the material of Steve’s jeans and _slid his fingers through the split seam_ , where they rubbed against the inside of Steve’s thigh.

There was a shocked pause while all the blood in Steve Rogers’ body diverted to flow southward. And then Steve had Sam backed up against the building, one arm planted on the brick near Sam’s ear, the other hand gripping Sam’s hip, pinning him in.

The heat sizzled between them for a long moment, Steve not daring to move, trembling with need and Sam startled, but warming.

When Sam stretched up, grabbed the back of Steve’s neck with one hand and drew him into a needy, hard kiss, Steve could have sworn the world ended.

An animal, longing sound came out of Sam’s throat and that was all it took. Steve’s tenuous hold on his control snapped and he was ravaging Sam’s mouth, pressing a heated kiss to those full, lush lips. His tongue darted out to taste, tickled at the lower lip and Sam opened to him with a gasp. He tasted of beer, and then it faded, and there was nothing there but the sweet flavor of Sam.

When Steve pulled back to look into Sam’s eyes, Sam was smiling. That gap-toothed, adorable grin that attracted him to the man in the first place. Sam exhaled, a rush of air against Steve’s cheek that was almost a caress in and of itself. Steve’s body flashed hot and cold, ice and fire. The hunger that followed in its wake was ravenous, devouring. He could think of nothing else; his want was so huge it threatened to swallow him whole.

Sam reached up one hand and brushed a finger down Steve’s face, like a blind man learning the features of someone new; each fingertip leaving a trail of fire in its wake. Steve trembled, down to his bones.

“Well, that was something,” Sam said.

“Yeah.”

***

“Do you trust me?” Natasha asked. She had a sizeable bag under her shoulder and was wearing an outfit that could be most readily described as revealing. Except it barely showed any skin. Skin tight, stretchy fabric, the bodysuit clung to her like wet tissue, outlining every curve and line. She had a sweatshirt tied around her hips, but it didn’t really help. Sam stared at her helplessly, trying to find a safe place for his eyes.

“That’s a loaded question,” Sam pointed out. “Trust you with what?”

“Secrets,” Natasha said, shrugging one shoulder. “Your life. Your heart.”

“Yes, yes, and no,” Sam said.

“Good enough. Are you ready for our date?”

That was an easier, safer question, but the answer was still, “No, not really.”

She smiled, and that smile lit her entire face. Her eyes were wide and expressive, fond, with just the slightest tip to her mouth that indicated that she was wryly amused. “Are you backing out?”

“Not even a little bit,” Sam said. That was the easiest question so far. He and Natasha had been on four dates so far; she was methodical, going through some imaginary checklist of suitable activities. Dinner, prosaic and boring, the food just on the edge of too pricey; dancing at a club with drinks; a political protest to yell and scream and hold signs. She’d felt him out on any number of conversational subjects; religion, politics, education, interests. When Sam would go back and think about the dates, he wondered if she had a file on him somewhere that she was comparing it to. Mostly, though, he just sat back and let her drive. So to speak.

He hadn’t yet asked _her_ out on a date. He should probably get on that, eventually.

His social calendar had never been so full; he and Steve had coffee twice a week (and sometimes some more kissing, which Sam enjoyed. He’d expected Steve to make a move, eventually, chase things into the bedroom, and the more time he spent with Steve, the more interested he was in moving things along in that direction, but Steve seemed to be okay with the glacial pace of an old fashioned courtship.) and sometimes grabbed an evening movie, or hit the diner up for waffles.

Nat hadn’t told him what was on today’s plan; she’d texted him with a time and date and the admonishment to wear clothes he could stretch and sweat in, and good shoes, and she’d pick him up.

She threaded her fingers with his and led him out of the Court… to a limo.

“What the hell?” Sam was wearing stretchy jogging pants and a tank top -- and he didn’t miss the way Natasha had taken her time looking him over, her eyes bright with admiration -- which wasn’t exactly limo attire.

“It’s my boss’s,” Natasha said. “He lends it out from time to time, when people do a particularly good job.”

“And what did you do?” Sam twitched his eyebrows, but went ahead and climbed in after the driver opened the back door for them.

Natasha buffed her nails on her too-tight top. “Nothing I can tell you about until the answers to my trust questions are all ‘yes.’”

“You don’t trust me, either,” Sam pointed out.

“I know,” Natasha said. “A problem I aim to rectify.” The driver got in the limo and pulled out into traffic.

“You are a very devious person,” Sam said.

“I know that, too.”

Natasha’s idea of a trust exercise was almost standard.

“Rock climbing?” Sam stood at the bottom of the rock wall and looked up. And up. And up some more.

“Trust me with your life?” Natasha laced up a harness.

Sam looked at her; her brilliant sapphire eyes were glinting with challenge. “Bitch, you on!”

Natasha laughed, delighted. She hooked the safety line and climbing lines onto her harness, then linked them in to his. “I’ll time you,” she said. “I bet I can beat your time by ten percent.”

“And what happens when you lose?” Rock climbing wasn’t his speciality, but Sam didn’t have a fear of heights and he was in relatively good shape. And he was tall.

“Well, then I’ll owe you one, won’t I?”

Sam checked the wall, eyeing finger and toe holes. He picked his start-point. “Ready?”

“Steady,” Natasha responded. She leaned back, letting the belaying line tug her until his weight was balanced between her hips, her hands on the rope.

“Go.”

***

Freshly showered, Sam sprawled across the back seat of Tony’s limo, looking like an advertisement for cologne or something. Natasha smiled to see it, he was relaxed and on an adrenaline high, but also pleasantly worn out. She licked her lips with a faint tinge of anticipation. She wanted to move pleasantly worn out all the way into the well-fucked and exhausted category.

Natasha tucked herself against the curve of Sam’s side, letting his arm drape around her shoulders. “So, now you know you can trust me with your life,” she said. Sam had done well; he climbed faster than she did, although she’d put in the extra strain to get her flag an additional seven feet higher than his, because she was a competitive bitch and if she’d given up, it would have kept her up at night.

“Can I trust you with secrets?” Sam asked.

“I’ll tell you one, if you want,” Natasha offered.

“Yeah?”

Natasha drew a circle on Sam’s thigh with her finger. “Tony has cameras in his limo.”

Sam snorted. “And you’re gettin’ your flirt on with me in here because…”

“I’m an exhibitionist,” Natasha said. She pulled herself upright and then straddled Sam’s thighs, bringing her face to a level with his. “And Tony’s a good friend. He’d like a little show, don’t tell. ‘Specially with someone like you, all gorgeous muscles and adorable expressions.” She leaned closer and spoke directly in his ear. “And look at that --” she twisted her hips, feeling the hot press of Sam’s interest against her thigh. “-- you’re into it. I knew you were an adrenaline junkie.”

“What gave it away?” Sam made a soft, moaning noise in the back of his throat as he rolled up against her.

“To start with,” Natasha said, nuzzling and licking at his neck, tasting the remnants of his sweat, the remnants of a gym shower, the deep, woody taste of Sam himself, “you agreed to date me _and_ Steve. That takes all sorts of crazy.”

“We all kinds of crazy up in here,” Sam said. He bounced Natasha on his lap, experimentally. “So, ‘bout that favor you owe me. What’s on the table?”

Bingo! Natasha was always a little grateful that her thoughts didn’t come with external sound effects, because right now, she’d be making little _cha-ching_ noises. “I didn’t know _I_ owed you a favor,” she said, wriggling up against him, feeling the full length of his heat and hard muscle against her body. “I know you said no strings attached sex was off the table; how interested are you in a little sex with intentions? See if we’re compatible, friends with benefits, little mutual stress-relief? With the intent to stay friends, work on forging an emotional connection.”

Sam ran his hands down Natasha’s back, his fingers splayed and possessive. “A little sex with intentions, huh? I might be able to get into that, girl.”

“You like the idea of someone watching?” Natasha smirked. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a condom. She held it up until Sam’s gaze tracked it. She placed it in the cupholder next to Sam’s wrist.

“Don’t mind the idea of Stark watchin’ me get it on with a beautiful woman,” Sam agreed. “S’long as it’s not goan end up on RedTube.”

“No, he wouldn’t do that,” Natasha said. She licked at Sam’s ear, letting her breath tickle. “He might watch it once, then it’ll get deleted. Tony’s good people that way. Little kinky… little crazy… lots of fun.”

There were moments in time and space, where gravity pulled bodies closer together and caused them to collide. There were moments in relationships, where emotions did the same thing. Most people didn’t recognize those moments when they happened; only seeing in looking back that perfect moment, where attraction and circumstances were exactly right.

Natasha had made the study of those moments her life’s work. This was the moment.

She hesitated, not to gauge his reaction; she was fairly certain of her reception. And not to test her control; she was always, always in control. Even when she wanted, desperately, she never quite gave up the reins. But to heighten the anticipation, to draw out the moment like spun sugar, to imprint every emotion and delicate motion of his face, of hers, on memory.

Natasha kissed Sam.

Steve had already told her that he was good; she was eager to sample for herself.

It was nothing like first kisses usually were, neither hesitant nor gentle, nor awkward, wet and difficult. This was more…

Just more.

Sam’s lips were rich and plush, soft and skilled and sure, robbing her of certainty. Domination by pleasure. His tongue was warm velvet against hers, seeking and stroking. Beneath the slick tangle was confidence, surety. He took her mouth hostage and gave no quarter. With each stroke, with each thrust of his mouth, he gave her pleasure, hot, dark, irresistible.

She felt herself softening under the onslaught of delight. He grew more demanding, his fingers tightened on her thighs; he rutted under her, hips rolling, sweet friction. The tip of his tongue probed at her lips, forcing her to inhale, to open, to take everything he had to give her, and she wanted, wanted more. Natasha had always understood kissing, a simple matter of exploration and tender sensation to rouse more ardent desires. But this kiss… this kiss was a masterpiece, in and of itself. If they stopped now, she might still be satisfied.

Natasha pulled back from him, gasping for breath, staring at him like he was a creature with which she had no familiarity at all. She wasn’t used to that, that feeling that anything could happen. That sensation of falling, but at the same time, knowing -- deep down bone sure -- that he would catch her.

He had an intoxicating flavor, like brandy, against her tongue. She leaned into it, took it, tasted it, wanting, needing. A dark, lush desire and he swirled it in her like that self-same brandy in a glass.

Sam took his time, stripped her down one piece of clothing at a time, touching, tasting, looking at everything she revealed before moving on to the next. It built the anticipation until Natasha was quivering with it. By the time they were both naked, their clothing in a pile of colors on the limo floor, she was near to desperate.

Sam Wilson made love like he was composing a symphony; three notes to form a chord, increasing speed and intensity to roll her into a crescendo. Natasha let her head loll back as he assaulted her willing person with slick, wet kisses. Unlike most of the men she’d been with, he didn’t try to mark her up, either. She appreciated that; she didn’t mind bites and nips, but she’d always thought of hickeys as being masculine territory warnings, and they often made her roll her eyes. Especially in a new relationship.

Instead, he licked and tasted, put those glorious lips to work, mapped each inch of her skin.

He was beautiful, undressed, like a work of art, all sculpted muscle and clean, ebony skin. She pressed herself against him, running her hands over his arms and back. She was almost certain that he’d lay her back along the benched seat and was pleasantly surprised when that didn’t seem his goal at all.

He was quiet in lovemaking, not talking much, his eyes saying everything and his hands saying the rest, but responsive. His breath caught, quiet, but urgently, as she touched him, sought out the places that made him gasp. Natasha helped him roll on the condom, enjoying the way his hips jerked as she brushed fingers along his curved length.

“Turn around,” Sam said, and she shifted quick enough, her knees tucked near his hips and her back arched away from him. He reached up to cup her breasts, thumb her nipples into aching peaks.

“More…” she whimpered. Sam licked his fingers and returned to her breast, tormenting it, his hands warm trails, the slippery trails left behind prickling in the air-conditioned interior.

He used one hand to spread her legs wider, one finger to reach between and sample the wetness between her legs. Used her own moisture to slick her opening, to sooth the ache of her clit. She pushed backward against the seat, against his thighs, wanting it, wanting that proud cock of his.

“Come on, come on,” she muttered. She couldn’t reach to press him against her opening, her balance was too shaky, there was nothing to brace against aside from his hands, or to push her own fingers against the roof for the limo and hold herself that way -- and when she did that, splayed and vulnerable as she was, he rewarded it with more fiery touches.

Sam rubbed at her clit, slow and gentle, almost a tickle, and she was squirming with it long before the heat built up, and then when it did, his touch wasn’t enough, it wasn’t enough, god damn it. He kept her there a while, sometimes rubbing the head of his cock against her soaked entrance, sometimes letting himself rut between her legs.

By the time Sam finally breached her opening, she was shivering with need. She almost didn’t notice, so wet and open, but then he moved in her, and she practically screamed with it. _God_.

Her fingers dug into the slick liner of the ceiling and he kept an arm wrapped around her waist so she didn’t fall. He stroked her, driving in, rubbing her with the thumb of his other hand. Her thighs tightened, clamping onto his hips until her muscles ached and screaming protest, and still she couldn’t stop, wanting, needing, finally getting.

Sam sighed, soft and easy, as she shattered around him. He fucked up into her; bouncing her across his powerful thighs and she pushed herself down, braced her hands on the ceiling to give him more friction, more traction, entirely the perfect angle. She twisted at the waist to kiss him and his cock jerked deep inside her as she met his lips with hers, and he came, moaning into her mouth with the strength of it.

They remained that way, drenched in sweat, for a while, until the air grew too chilly and they scrambled around for clothes and to clean up with wet wipes that Natasha had stored in her bag. Sam laughed at her and called her a sexual boyscout. She rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him.

“Where are we?” he asked, finally, looking out the limo’s tinted glass.

“Um, Passaic?” Natasha guessed, watching the scenery for a moment.

“New Jersey? I just fucked a white girl in a limo in New Jersey? Why does this seem like a very bad episode of some cheaply made reality show?”

Natasha laughed, shoved him while he was trying to button his pants. “Asshole,” she accused him, fondly.

He met her gaze, put a hand on the back of her neck and drew her in for a sweet, soft kiss.

“Absolutely,” he said.

 _Oh yes,_ Natasha thought. Sam was going to be just… perfect.


	4. I Made Breakfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains explicit m/m/f sexual content. If that's not your thing, you can pretty much stop reading after the second section.

 Nat buried her face in her hands and cried out to the kitchen table, “Why, why did I think you were going to be perfect?”

Steve couldn’t help it; he tipped the wicker-backed chair on two legs, threw his head back and cackled. The argument had been going on for the better part of twenty minutes, and Steve didn’t have, so to speak, a dog in the fight. He was actually considering getting popcorn.

“Man, shut the hell up,” Sam groused at him

“You two are adorable,” Steve pointed out. “I mean, completely bullheaded and stubborn, but adorable. Hey, Nat, if I’m not telling _you_ , is it okay if I tell Sam how beautiful you are when you’re angry?”

Nat responded by throwing her napkin at him. Steve batted it out of the air and off the wall where it landed neatly in the trashcan.

“Okay,” she said, softly, whistling between her pursed lips, “that was almost impressive enough for me to forgive you for being an extreme asshole.”

“I don’t see how I’m the asshole, here,” Steve said, keeping one ankle hooked around the table leg to hold his balance. “I just think you two are funny as hell f’r being stubborn.”

“Look, pineapple ain’t a pizza topping,” Sam protested. “An’ don’t tell me I can’t taste it if we only get it on half, because if that ain’t a bald faced lie, I don’t know what is. It contaminates the pizza.”

“My pizza is not contaminated!”

“I don’t want that sticky-sweet crap all over my cheese, an’ I’m telling you, it gets steamy from bein’ hot and the steam gets on the other half of the pizza.”

Steve’s suggestion that they just get three separate pizzas and everyone have their own was greeted with all sorts of dismay, mostly from Nat who said that if she _had_ a whole pizza, she would _eat_ a whole pizza and the resultant gas she’d have would be… unpleasant in the small apartment they shared. Well, she and Steve shared and Sam crashed with them from time to time when he’d had too much to drink and didn’t want to get up. (The couch -- well, let’s just say there had to be some rapid rules adjustments, because there was only so many times the cushions could be flipped before it just got _nasty_ \-- had gotten a lot more wear in the last month and a half or so.)

Steve had offered to share his half a pizza; leaving Sam with a whole pizza and Nat had argued with that, too. She wanted some pizza. And Steve… well, Steve’s appetite was legendary. Small children fled the scene when Steve announced that he was hungry. Arms and legs out of reach of food intake orifice.

So, they’d decided that Steve could have one pizza (Pepperoni, sausage and mushroom, because Steve was a basic kinda guy that way) and that Nat and Sam would split the other (with the option to steal a slice or two from Steve’s pizza if they were that hungry and ate fast enough) and they’d been bickering ever since.

“Okay, okay,” Steve said, finally, holding up his hands. “This is what we’re going to do; I’m going to walk down to the pizza place. And get your damn pizzas. I can buy _slices_ , we don’t have to get a whole pizza, you know--”

“Man, that’s so much more expensive than buying a whole pie,” Sam protested.

Steve did some quick math in his head. Pizza by the slice… “Okay, look, it’s five dollars a slice, and a whole pie is thirty-two bucks. So, I’ll pay the extra eight dollars so that I can have my pizza sometime today instead of _next week_ , yeah?”

Sam and Nat looked at each other. Blinked. Looked back at Steve. Blinked again. They were like two owls. Steve leaned back in his chair and laughed, not the little smiles he usually doled out like he was hoarding gold, but actual, deep, belly laugh. He laughed until his chest hurt, until his throat ached.

“You know, I think I’m goan blame you for this one,” Sam said, turning to Nat. “He’s on you, mama.”

“He does grow on one, after some time,” Nat pointed out. “And I love him, which helps.”

“Right,” Steve said, wiping his eyes. “You two can discuss my terrible personality quirks and resemblance to mold behind my back. Pineapple obscenity for Nat and black olives and tomatoes for Sam, right?”

Both options sounded terrible to Steve, but whatever. Some people were just broken, and you couldn’t fix them. You could only give in, or give up.

Steve gave them a salute and headed out. He wasn’t even sure they noticed he’d left, being busy making a list of all the things wrong with Steve. It had been one of their primary forms of entertainment on movie nights -- when they complained about everything from his lousy taste in movies to his habit of spritzing soy sauce on his popcorn.

Giving them some time to themselves was a good idea; recently Steve was starting to feel more and more like the third wheel. Like Nat and Sam were inviting him along on their dates because they were worried he was lonely. And… he sort of was. But he was also watching them fall in love, which was beautiful and awesome and…

Kinda depressing, sometimes.

The worst thing about it was just… he knew better. Steve knew for a fact that Nat loving someone else didn’t change how she felt about him. He knew that. He’d been through it half a dozen times, at least.

But Steve didn’t love Tony Stark, or Clint, or Bruce, or even Sharon (hell, half the time he didn’t even _like_ Sharon) so it didn’t matter as much.

At first, he’d decided he was in love with Sam, and then he’d convinced himself that it was much too early to feel that way, and he was just in lust with Sam.

And then he’d spent time with Sam. A lot of time with Sam. Coming home to Sam -- who was, quite frankly, at their place a lot more than his own -- was… nice. Comforting.

But he didn’t want to get in Nat’s way, either. Really, compared to Nat, Steve was… boring.

Steve followed his nose to the pizzeria once he got close enough, stood in line. Ordered. Paid. Walked home, the bottom box of pizza somewhat uncomfortably warm on his forearm, but smelled fantastic. Pineapple and all.

He hadn’t bothered to lock the door on the way out, and Nat and Sam were still, apparently, sitting in the dining nook, because he could hear Sam clear as a bell out in the stairway.

“... yeah, okay, you can be in love without living together, but that’s part of what it is for me. _Organic_. Not cute little heart eyes and circles in your damn planner, Nat. It’s wakin’ up together and first thing in the morning sex and getting pissed off at dirty dishes in the sink and arguing about what we’re going to watch on tv. That’s endgame, for me. If I’m never going to be in your personal space, then this is all we’re gonna have.”

Steve stopped with his hand on the doorknob. He was pretty sure this was a discussion he not should be overhearing. He made a loud scrape of the door with his shoe, balanced the pizza on one hand and reached for the knob.

Even with that warning, the way Nat and Sam jumped when he came in reinforced that decision; they were talking about something private. Something that didn’t involve Steve and that was tough to swallow. He’d worried about losing Nat before, of course he had. He was only human and raised with the idea of coupling off. But Nat had proven herself; that her love for other people didn’t prevent her from loving Steve. She was a generous woman, and she had more love than a lot of people could handle.

There was distraction while the pizza was put down, plates dug out of the cabinets (Sam already knew where everything was… he’d helped put the dishes away any number of times, which Nat appreciated because Steve couldn’t seem to manage to remember Nat’s crazy cooking utensils versus serving utensils rules to save his life, despite having lived with the woman for quite a while now) and the both of them peering dubiously into the pizza box.

“What is this?” Natasha pointed to a row of plastic dip and sauce containers.

“Switzerland,” Steve said. The sauces and dips (ranch, bleu cheese, garlic butter, and barbecue) were not part of the usual pickups for pizza, but since Steve was there, and they were only fifty cents each, he’d gotten them.

“Excuse me,” Sam said, eyebrows going up and his lip making that “you are kidding me, bro” sneer.

“You’re excused,” Steve responded. “Look, you two were bein’ so concerned over your pizzas contaminating each other, I thought some neutral ground might be appropriate. That way her pineapple juice didn’t get on your pizza, and his black olives didn’t touch your cheese. Switzerland.”

The way the two of them were staring at him in mixed amusement and wonder was a little unnerving.

“You see?” Sam made a frame with his fingers and held it up, marking off Steve’s face. “That’s it, right there, that’s our boy.”

Nat nodded, mouth full of cheesy deliciousness. She made an effort to chew faster, which Steve always found endearing, because Nat tended to fold her pizza in half and took monster bites. Finally she cleared enough space to be able to talk, although there was a smear of sauce on her cheek. Feeling weirdly like it might be the last time, Steve leaned over the flicked his tongue out, cleaning her cheek. She made a face and wiped at it the spot with the back of her hand. “You could just _tell_ me,” she complained.

“More fun, my way,” Steve said.

“No, don’t even,” Nat said, leaning away from Sam on the other side. She made a big show of wiping her face. “I’m clean. I’m fine. That’s going on the list, you two may absolutely not gang up on me, except in good ways.”

Sam laughed. “A’ight, Miss I eat pizza like someone’s goan take it away, even though nobody in this room wants your nasty-ass pizza.”

“What list?” Steve asked.

Nat’s eyes suddenly widened and she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Shit.” The word was muffled behind her fingers.

Yeah, okay, this was going to be bad.

Sam rolled his eyes at her. “Don’t even get started with me, mama,” Sam said. “You said you wanted t’ talk to him alone. I can take my pizza an’ scat, if it’ll make things easier.”

Steve shook his head. Might as well get it over with, right? “Just… go ahead,” Steve said, waving one hand.

“It doesn’t really seem fair to pressure you, man,” Sam said. “Let me get out of your hair while you talk this over--”

Steve was going to lose both of them at once. And it hurt, but at the same time, what better gift could he give to the two people he loved, then to let them have each other? He put on a brave front, stretched his mouth into an easy smile.

Nat slanted a look at him that told Steve everything he needed to know about how Nat viewed his brave face. “ _We_ ,” she said, carefully, stressing it, “were wondering if you might consider all moving in _together_.”

Steve was not entirely sure what his face did, except that his jaw dropped open fast enough that it actually hurt. “What?”

“Like, I know,” Sam said, “you ain’t ready for anything else serious, you were real careful about that, and I like what we have. I don’t want to mess it up. Kinda like to see if it might move on into somethin’ else. But--” and Sam made a circle sort of gesture between himself and Nat “--me and little mama here, we really…”

“You love each other,” Steve said, slowly.

Nat twisted her mouth a little. “And you, idiot.”

Steve blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Aaaaaaaand. We. Looooove. You.” Nat was prone to being an asshole sometimes. Now was apparently one of them. “I love you, I love Sam, and unless things have changed since this morning, you still love me. Sam loves me, Sam loves you. And you at least like Sam, right?”

“Of course I love Sam,” Steve blurted, then flushed, hot and red and miserable. Because he hadn’t meant to say it like that. He turned to Sam, burning with embarrassment. “I… wait, _what_?”

“Okay, I ain’t laughing at you, man, I promise, but… damn, I wish I could take a picture of your face,” Sam said. He was rolling back in his chair, grinning that wide, gap-toothed adorable smile of his.

Nat rolled her eyes. “Men,” she said. She turned to Sam. “See, what did I tell you? He loves you, stop moping about it.”

“You two were getting so close,” Steve said. “I didn’t want to rock your boat.”

_By ignoring those things I want for me._

“And I didn’t know if we were still stuck on third base, man,” Sam said. “Like, I’m okay with it, that that’s what it is for you, but --”

“No, it’s not, it’s…” Steve didn’t have words. He _sucked_ with words. “You… you two both…” Steve didn’t even know what he was saying.

“Triads are a thing, Steve,” Nat said, folding her hands very professionally over her knee. “We can see if it works. It might not, despite all the best intentions. Sometimes that happens, in relationships. But…”

“Look,” Sam said, suddenly, “the lease at my place is up in… three months. I can renew if I need to, but…”

“Trial period?” Nat suggested.

Steve’s mouth wobbled a bit, and he blinked eyes that were suddenly stinging. He wasn’t… “Yeah, I could… I… I’d like that.”

*** 

Despite everything, it had taken a while before they were all truly comfortable in each other’s space. The first time they’d tried all sleeping in the same bed -- just sleeping, mind -- Sam had ended up on the sofa anyway. It was just too crowded with three of them in the queen-sized bed and waking up with Steve fuckin’ laying on him more than once, feeling smothered and too hot, had been too much.

Nat had ended up being in the middle all the time after that; she claimed that whenever she was on the outside, one or the other of the boys shoved her onto the floor. And then she complained about being waaaay too hot, because Steve apparently kept reaching across Nat to be able to rest his hand on Sam’s hip.

New bed became a priority, and then Sam felt weird and guilty about it, because what the hell, even. If they didn’t make it, here would be Nat and Steve with a bed that was really too damn large for the bedroom. They’d had to move Nat’s dresser out of the bedroom and into the den, which made the den damn uncomfortable, and Steve had joked that at least he had a laptop, so he could do his work in the dining area.

They were in each other’s way, and Sam wasn’t sure that it was a good thing, not at all.

Fortunately, there wasn’t a lot of time when they were all in the same bed together anyway; their mix-and-match schedules had them flying solo about half the time, and only two together most of the rest of the time. Still. Big bed. Which was nice and all, but Sam still felt obscurely guilty about it. Maybe it was a sexism thing; Nat had shelled out most of the money for the bed. Sam wasn’t paying rent with them yet, since he still had his empty place over in Bed-Stuy. And he was helping with the utilities here, but still having to pay his own back at his place. Which meant money for extras like a new bed had been… lacking.

Sam had a drawer in Nat’s dresser, and one in Steve’s. Nat’s fit more, but that was because before she started working as a consultant (she still wouldn’t tell him exactly what she did which worried Sam a little bit more than maybe it should have), she’d had a job at Hot Topic and had learned to fold tee shirts in tiny, very flat rectangles. She could do it so quickly it was like watching an illusionist work. She’d lay the shirt out flat, grab two tiny pinches of fabric, lift, twist, shake, and Sam had never see a drawer full of tees packed so full.

Sam had taken over most of the cooking; Nat point blank refused, and Steve’s cooking skills were limited to stuff he could make up in the fryer. Which led to some interesting discussions, since Sam’s food choices tended to be soul food, or some variety of stir-fry. But Sam stuck to his guns on that one; like his Mama always said, you can eat or you can complain and do your own damn cooking.

He’d just finished dinner prep; wearing his apron and scraping green pepper seeds into the disposal when Nat came in. She was wearing a cubical hive outfit, one that could run the gamut from conservative (Sam was particularly fond of how innocent that rounded collar made her look, even though he had reason to know at this point that innocent wasn’t even in her vocabulary) to slutty (two buttons down and you could see the racy, lacy bra she was wearing, and knowing Nat, she’d be wearing matching panties with it).

“Hey honey, I’m home,” Nat said. She threw her briefcase onto the sofa where it teetered a moment, then fell to the floor. “Jesus fuck!”

“You okay?” Sam glanced at the stove and then turned off the burner -- the oil had just started heating and the smell of sauteeing garlic was a delicate cloud around the pan, but it wouldn’t hurt anything to let it sit.

“No,” Nat said. She yanked a pair of hoop earrings out of her ears and dropped them on the hotspot near the door -- that table where the keys and mail and empty soda cans and everything else that could fit on a small, flat surface gathered. She kicked her shoes off and yanked her fingers through her hair, pulling tangles out with no degree of gentleness.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Sam said. He hurried into the living room and took Nat’s wrist, untwisting her fingers from her hair. “You’re not okay, baby, come here, come here.” He pulled her into a hug, hands on her back and she shivered in his arms.

“I’m… yeah,” Nat said, taking a few deep breaths. “Some days, what I do skirts a very thin line between legal and not… entirely. And it’s never what you’d call _ethical_.”

Sam rolled his tongue around in his mouth for a few moments; this might have been the closest thing Nat had ever said about her job. “Which is what, honey?”

“I’m a Competitive Intelligence Solutions manager,” she said.

“Which means what, exactly?”

“She’s a corporate spy,” Steve said, coming out of the bedroom, looking deliciously disheveled, his blond hair sticking up everywhere. “Stark hires her to keep an eye on his competition and to make sure none of them are hacking into his computer systems. Non-competitive clause breakers. That sort of thing. Was it Potts?”

“No, thank god,” Nat said. “But I did find them; there’ll be charges brought, so I can’t really say much.” She glanced at Sam, hesitant. “It’s part of why Tony and I were together so long. He knew I was safe. Tony’s… well, he’s got a bit of a reputation and his competition are always sending pretty people after him.”

“Heard it, seen it,” Sam said. “Stark’s… yeah…”

“He’s a good man,” Nat insisted. “But he’s got terrible people sense. He wants, so bad, for someone to like him for who he is rather than his money or his company, that he’s fallen hard for a plant waaay too many times. I try to protect him from that, but it’s hard.”

Steve joined in the group hug, his huge bricklayer arms going around them both to squash them together in comfort and heat. “Is there anything we can do for you?”

Nat raised her chin. “Yes, yes there is,” she said. “We can get over this whole taking turns thing, and you can both take me to bed and fuck me until I’m screaming.”

Well, that went right to Sam’s groin so fast and so hot that he almost doubled over with wanting.

“Pretty sure I can manage it,” Steve said, one eyebrow going up as he looked over the top of Nat’s head at Sam. “How ‘bout you, Sam? You up for it?”

“So that’s how it is?” Sam asked, his face twisting up into his best sarcastic expression.

“That’s how it is,” Steve said.

***

 

They’d finally gotten a new bed, too; which was nice, Steve had to admit. The bed he and Nat shared had two very distinctive dips and a little no-man’s land in the middle. In her more insecure moments, Nat had called it Hadrian’s Wall, to keep the barbaric Scots and Irish out. When she was feeling more confident, she’d called it “that annoying lump in the middle of the bed which makes seducing you an effort and a half.”

It didn’t exist anymore; there were three of them in the bed and the mattress had not yet conformed to any sort of memory-holding patterns.

Steve was wearing only his sleep pants, low around his hips, and Nat shoved Sam in his direction. “Get Steve all ready, while I get undressed.” That was almost a relief just because Nat’s clothing was so damned complicated that Steve often felt like an oaf trying to take it off her an-- _Holy shit!_ Sam was wasting exactly zero time. He shoved the thin cotton sleep pants down around Steve’s ankles and took Steve’s hardening prick into his mouth with a quick, wet movement.

Steve almost fell over backward, so unexpected and sensual the attack.

“Mmmmm,” Nat commented, looking up, her hands still on her blouse-buttons. Her eyes glowed like embers across the darkened room. Steve whimpered, caught in the net of her gaze, held upright by Sam’s strong hands and wicked mouth. Blood diverted from high brain functions and flowed southward, leaving him weak and dizzy. His hands came down on Sam’s shoulders, the warm skin radiating heat from under his tee.

“God, you’re good at that,” Steve murmured. He brushed his thumb along Sam’s jaw, not sure if he wanted Sam to stop and respond to his words or to just keep doing what he was doing. Didn’t seem to matter what Steve decided, Sam continued to suck him down until Steve was hard and full and throbbing.

Sam’s tongue ran circles around Steve’s dick, wet and hot movements that had Steve’s knees wobbling like a newborn colt.

Nat kept up a running commentary that Steve struggled to make sense of, and once he did, he almost swooned. Nat was giving Sam directions and Sam was doing what she said, torturing Steve’s cock in between the hot, dirty words and the slick feel of Sam’s mouth and tongue and hands.

Nat was down to her underwear before she stopped giving Sam little hints and instructions. She came over, hands on Steve’s arm, and drew him into a slow, sensual kiss. Her fingers spread over the back of his skull, dragging his head down to meet her. Nat caught gently at his lower lip, tenderly nibbling, which sent vibrant shocks down Steve’s spine until he was shivering in their combined grasp, not sure which way to move. It was too much sensation, and Steve was both overwhelmed by it and wanted it never to stop.

Nat was gasping into his mouth and Steve realized suddenly that Sam’s hands had gone wandering. Steve’s cock was still worked over, bathed by Sam’s tongue, but he’d also dipped one hand under the lace of Nat’s drawers and was doing something downright naughty to her that Steve couldn’t see. He could only feel the effects in her shaking mouth and the urgent way she forced her tongue into his mouth and licked at him.

Steve’s thighs were quivering, but he managed to take one hand off Sam long enough to unhook Nat’s bra and circle his fingertip around one firm breast. She shivered as he rubbed his palm over the tip of her nipple, teasing it erect.

“Y’all,” Sam finally said, looking up, “didn’t we go an’ buy a great big ass bed for this, rather than my getting knee pain from being down on this shitty little throw rug?”

Steve cracked up, almost falling over between the giggles and the boneless shivery feeling in his legs. “Yeah, come on, let’s take our girl to bed,” he said. He gave Sam a hand up. The two of them seemed to have some sort of mental connection, because they shifted until they were on either side of Nat and lifted her off her feet, giggling and squealing and trying (not very hard) to escape.

Steve took her down to the bed, pressing Nat into the mattress, claiming her mouth. The wet velvet friction of her mouth was addictive, Steve couldn’t break free of her mouth, tasting her lips and exploring the inside of her mouth. His lips were swollen from kissing, each motion an exquisite relief, stoking the fires higher.

Sam stripped out of his clothes and knocked them askew when his weight shifted on the mattress. Steve didn’t know what it was, but he seemed in perfect, delicious sync with his lovers because Nat opened her eyes while she was kissing him and they had another one of those precision moments. They turned as one and practically attacked Sam, drawing him into the middle between them, hands and mouths exploring. It was almost a race, to see which one of them could draw the most debauched sounds out of his throat.

Steve settled at Sam’s neck, licking at the salty skin there, blowing hot into his ear and nipping at the lobe. Sam groaned, arched his back as Nat’s mouth came down over one dark nipple, teasing it with the tip of her tongue, then sucking, hard.

“Wonder what it’d look like,” she murmured, her finger playing with the peaked skin there, “if I got Steve to give you a hickey, right here.” Steve was pretty notorious for his hickeys, loved to leave marks, and Sam didn’t bruise nearly as visibly as Nat’s skin did. It had been a challenge and as Sam got weak and whimpered, Steve started the slide down Sam’s body.

“I gotcha,” Nat said, soothing, as Sam writhed and wriggled, not quite fighting, but easily overwhelmed by sensation. Steve’s mouth came down, twisting his tongue over the eagerly hardening flesh. Sam arched up, throwing his head back and displaying his throat. Nat dove for it, her teeth a flash of white against his skin before her lips covered it, sucking blood to the surface and then soothing the abused skin with her tongue.

Steve did the same, nipping and teasing at the skin, listening to Sam’s eager whimpers, the deep groaning sighs. Steve tugged at Nat’s hand and they linked their fingers together over Sam’s chest. In tandem, they stroked down his belly, tracing the lines of muscle there and then joined again over his cock.

“Holy shit,” Sam breathed as they stroked him together, fingers tangling and twisting over hot, ardent skin.

Nat scooched further down the bed, her mouth turning up in a mischievous smile. Steve knew the instant her tongue landed on Sam’s shaft. Sam practically came off the bed, back a perfect curve. Steve returned to claim possession of Sam’s mouth, feeling the man twitch and writhe underneath him, in response to every twitch of Nat’s talented mouth.

“Woah, woah, babe,” Sam said, sitting up. “You want me to be any use t’you at all, you goan stop that right now.”

Nat laughed, low and delighted, then licked a single stripe up Sam’s cock, letting her tongue linger over the crown like she was sucking a sweet. “No? Not even if I say please?”

Sam crunched like he was doing sit ups at the gym. “You an evil woman,” he replied.

Steve tipped his head to one side, giving Nat a smug grin. “He’s got your number, sweetheart,” Steve said. “Might as well just admit it.”

Nat grinned. “I admit everything. I regret nothing.” And she licked once more, slow swirl over the ridge.

“Man, help me out here,” Sam said, throwing one arm over his face, “or she’s goan end me before this gets started.”

Steve shrugged and did what he knew how to do best to distract Nat; took her into his arms and covered her body with short, hot, kitten licks. She was quite distracted in seconds, rolling over onto her back and shoving at Steve’s head, directing and dictating.

Steve got himself situated between Nat’s legs, the rich smell of her a tempting tease. He licked one thigh and watched the muscles jump there.

“Good boy,” Nat said, running her hands through his hair.

“I’ll say so,” Sam added, and Sam’s hand came down with a stinging snap on Steve’s left asscheek. “Up on your knees, big boy.”

Steve whined and did as he was told. Nat straightened up until she was sitting, legs spread wide and her knees up. “I like to watch. What Sam?”

“S’long as you’re up there, anyway,” Sam said, running his finger around Steve’s hole like he wasn’t even paying attention, sending jolts of sensation up Steve’s spine. “You wanna get me lube and a rubber?”

Nat stretched over and Steve flicked his tongue at her, distracting. She whined and hissed, for all the world sounding like an offended cat, paused and then rolled over, coming up on her knees, and while she was there anyway, Steve couldn’t resist. He dragged her back down to the bed and bit the curve of her ass, right at the hip.

“Sam!” Nat complained and then Sam’s hand was between Steve’s legs and all his joints were weak as Sam stroked him mercilessly. Nat squirmed out from under him and opened the bedside table drawer. She chucked a handful of condoms over her shoulder, about half of which landed scattered over Steve’s back.

“Wow, you want me to use all of these?” Sam asked. He reached over Steve to grab the lube and poured probably more than was strictly necessary across Steve’s ass.

“Really, Sam?” Steve threw an arch look over his shoulder that vanished in a groan of appreciation as Sam breached him, a little less gently than usual. Steve cried out, went down to his elbows and then stared over his shoulder again. “Really, Sam?” he repeated.

“Yeah, I think so,” Sam said. “Whatchoo looking back here at me for? Get to work on our girl.”

Nat piled pillows behind her back and spread her legs again, inviting. “I like this plan, I’m happy to be a part of it,” she said, dropping her hand between her legs and flicking her clit, tempting him.

“Oh, _Jesus_ ,” Steve said. He wrapped his hands around her thighs and spread her.

Behind him, Sam got to work with a steady rhythm and Steve found himself following along helplessly, his tongue and lips and fingers moving in time with Sam’s. Sam opened him up, slow, and hot, the stretch delicious, the burn entirely welcome. Steve fell into a mindless rhythm, caught between giving pleasure and getting it. He worked Nat with his tongue, with his fingers, tasting the salt and tang of her, listening to the sounds of her moaned. Her thighs clenched and relaxed. She tossed her head back and then struggled to get upright again so she could watch as Sam wrecked Steve.

He didn’t know what he was doing anymore, just that he couldn’t stop, couldn’t, until Nat was crying out and her flesh quivered under his tongue. He nursed her through the aftershocks until she was weakly batting him away. “Oh, god, that’s too much, stop, stop,” she whined, voice sated and low.

“Come on then, lazy girl,” Sam said, “gimme a hand with this one.”

“Shut up, asshole,” Nat said. She threw one of the decorative pillows at Sam, who laughed and smacked it out of the air.

Nat crawled over, the sinuous curve of her body a temptation and a trial. She joined Sam behind him and Steve groaned, not sure he could take whatever they were cooking up back there. Nat unwrapped the condom and Steve peered over his shoulder, watching as she slid it down over Sam’s length, her fingers teasing and light.

“You ready, Steve, man?” Sam asked.

God, yes. “Uh-huh,” Steve managed, shivering, and then he was nearly howling. Nat slid beneath his belly, her mouth coming down on his cock at the same time that Sam breached him, pressing in an inch, more.

“There’s our good boy,” Sam said, rocking his hips light. He added more lube and slid out again.

“Oh, _christ_ ,” Steve was shivering, sweating, and Nat worked him with her tongue and mouth, her hand slippery with lube, fingers teasing against his balls, and Steve was going to die, he was going to die right here and now. He couldn’t decide if he should rock back onto Sam’s dick or thrust forward into Nat’s mouth, pinned between equally torrid sensations.

They took it out of his hands completely. Sam pulled him up until his arms were braced against the wall, fucked up and in while Nat moved around, getting on her hands and knees to swallow him whole.

Nat reached between his legs, rubbed at them both in the spot where they were joined, her fingers clever and suddenly Sam was moaning. “Oh, god, baby, just like, jus’ jus’ like that, oh, god,” Sam cried. He was breathing hard, exhaling in short, hard pants, teasing at Steve’s back, slick with sweat.

Sam slammed into Steve, hard, aching, and so, so good, so deep. Steve fell forward again, sprawled over Nat’s back as Sam shouted.

“Oh, god.”

Steve didn’t even know what was happening, his body so tight with need that he couldn’t even see. Sam groaned, pulled him back up. Nat twisted backward, sprawling on her back, propped up on her elbows. “Come on, baby,” she said, licking her lip and giving Sam a challenging stare. “How’s your aim?” Nat left her mouth open, her lip wet and slick, eyes hungry.

For just a moment, Steve had no idea what she was talking about and then Sam took Steve in hand, stroking him slow. Steve groaned, fucking up into Sam’s fist, soaked with Nat’s saliva and lube, so wet and slick and… oh, god!

He went off like a fireworks display, like a cork out of bottle of champagne, hips rocking into it. He splattered come over Nat’s body, white droplets beading over her perfect breasts and across her flat belly and then he wrenched back, splattered again, oh, christ, he didn’t even know that was possible. Nat laughed, licking his spill off her lower lip, wiping it off her cheek.

“Nice one,” she said. She flicked her fingers across her chin.

“Christ,” Steve managed, shivering with aftershock and trying not to fall on Nat. “You two are evil.”

“And you love us both,” Nat said, pertly. She righted herself, come still dripping off her skin and kissed Sam over Steve’s shoulder, letting him taste and Steve groaned again, a lance of useless heat spearing his gut.

“Evil,” Steve stressed. “And I love you. Both.”

Sam laughed, nuzzled at Steve’s ear. “You two are pretty much okay, yourself.”

“Good. I am not moving for the rest of the day.” Nat sprawled back onto the bed, spreading her arms out for her men. “Come, you can cuddle with me.”

Sam shook his head, laughing low and satisfied. “You are sooo bossy.”

“Uh-huh,” Nat agreed.

Steve practically fell on his face as soon as Sam wasn’t holding him up anymore, and Nat cuddled up against him, throwing one leg over his hips. Sam drew up on the other side, reaching over her back to cup the back of Steve’s neck.

Sleep followed him right down, crashing over him like a wave, and Steve drowned in it.

*** 

Nat groaned when Steve’s alarm clock went off about an hour later. Working opposite shifts had its good points, but long-term cuddling wasn’t one of them.

She stretched, discovered half the bed was empty. She untwined herself from Steve and found Sam in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, grinning at them.

“I made breakfast, if you all eat that sort of thing…”


	5. Art




End file.
